Egypt and Japan signed a grant agreement to support the establishment of an electronic system for calculating value added tax (VAT) worth 15.480 million Egyptian pounds at the Ministry of Investment and International Cooperation. This came during a meeting held between Nassar and Chinese Ambassador to Cairo Song Aiguo that tackled the future of the economic cooperation between the two countries and means of boosting Egyptian-Chinese economic relations in all fields, especially in the fields of trade and industry. The meeting was attended by Head of the Egyptian Commercial Service Ahmed Antar, and China's trade advisor to Cairo Han Peng. The minister pointed out that the Egyptian government is working on turning Egypt into a commercial and logistic hub for the access of Chinese products to Africa and Europe. "The current period is the appropriate time to pump Chinese investments into the Egyptian market in light of the political stability in Egypt and strong relationship between the two countries, in addition to the economic incentives that Egypt offers, including the new investment law," the minister said. The new investment law provides investors with several incentives and treats men, women, Egyptian and foreign investors equally. The law also stipulates that foreign employees should not exceed 20 percent of the total number of workers in the projects established by non-Egyptian investors. The meeting also included a review about Egypt's participation in China International Exhibition that will be held next November in the Chinese city of Shanghai, with the participation of 100 countries from around the world and a large number of Egyptian companies working in all fields. After choosing Egypt to be the guest of honor of the exhibition, Nassar affirmed that Egypt's participation in the Chinese exhibition is an important opportunity to raise its exports to China. For his part, Aiguo stressed his country's keenness to strengthen political and economic relations between Egypt and China during the coming period. He pointed out the importance of Egypt's participation in the China-Africa Forum set to be held in Beijing in September which will be a good platform to review the investment and trade opportunities available between China and African countries, led by Egypt. The ambassador emphasized Egypt's importance as a strategic partner to China in the Middle East and Africa, adding that it was one of the first countries to support the belt and road initiative currently being implemented by the Chinese government. Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled the road and road initiative in 2013 to build a modern silk road linking China by land and sea to Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa, allocating $126 billion for the plan. Aiguo also expressed his happiness with the success of the Chinese economic zone "TEDA Egypt" in attracting many companies to invest in the Chinese region, noting that the region is expected to attract large investments after the completion of the second phase of the industrial zone project northwest of the Gulf of Suez, which contributes to the provision of more jobs. The TEDA-Suez zone is an Egyptian-Chinese industrial zone in Ain Sokhna, planned to span over 7.34 kilometers square, with the first phase already completed.
